Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: retrofitting an existing neighborhood

[sandra wolf (sandywolf]

Dear Tricia,
     Maybe you have not heard of N Street Cohousing in Davis, California. This 
was one of the first retrofitted cohousing neighborhoods. Check out 
www.nstreetcousing.org
     I saw their neighborhood on a tour several years ago, and it is still my 
favorite. They started in 1986 and bought one house at a time as they became 
available. Now they have 19 houses, 50 adults, and 14 kids. They took out the 
backyard fences separating the houses from each other, and made gardens, raise 
chickens, have a compost, and the kids all run around together in safety in the 
back. They turned one of the houses into a common house.
Good luck,
Sandra Wolf> From: mrbouchez06 [at] aol.com> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:57:16 
-0500> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> Subject: [C-L]_ retrofitting an 
existing neighborhood> > Hi> I'm not yet in a co housing situation but 
considering a semi-retrofit of > quasi co housing for a neighborhood in 
southwest florida. My thought is to > encourage sharing of various resources 
from both an economic and > socially-sustainable community approach. I'm not 
sure that my somewhat-aloof neighborhood is > ready for such drastic change but 
it's worth a try. I'll tell them that > socialization will prolong their lives 
and that might gain me some recruits. > > Several areas have crossed my mind as 
projects to consider. I already > converted my front yard from the traditional 
cookie cutter, "stay off of my st > augustine grass" florida yard to a 
beautiful butterfly garden that invites > people to stop and chat. My next 
thought is to work on a common doggie play > area, possibly in my own side yard 
as this is a very doggie neighborhood. > > Another idea has sprung from a 
present disaster I am dealing with (the > death of my irrigation well). It has 
come to mind that drilling a common well for > multiple homes to irrigate from 
makes more sense than everyone dealing with > this catastrophe when it occurs 
(i just replaced my pump to the tune of 1200. > and have no idea how expensive 
digging deeper for water will run). Before > anyone gets offended at using 
precious water resources for lawn watering, let > me hasten to add that I live 
in southwest Florida where not keeping one's > yard up will land you in HOA 
purgatory (been there/done that) and the state of > Florida will not come to 
your rescue. We have to water the lawn so the > approach is to find a way to be 
more resourceful, more financially savvy, and > again, build a sense of 
community and joint ownership of our unintentional > community. > > Has anyone 
out there done a "retrofitting" to some extent like the concept > of 
"superbia"?> Has anyone done a common well for watering in a community? Not 
necessarily > one large well for the whole neighborhood but several neighbors 
hooking up > off one common drilling.> Any input would be appreciated.> In the 
meantime, living in the land of Sunshine where it never rains though > we wish 
fervently that it would. In fact, I'm just dreaming of a wet > Christmas even 
if it were snow! And i wish that raindrops would keep falling on my > head.> 
Tricia> > > > **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes 
> (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)> 
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